Dilli En Passant

The time has come to move on from the Sparrow Nest.  We enjoy an excellent supper of chicken biryani with extra chicken  and splendid chapattis. We thank Mrs Ramesh for the cooking and all round hospitality and say goodbye to the children.  Kailash is waiting with the gypsy and deposits us at the station. Information is scanty and nearly all notices are in Hindi alone.  We find seats in the waiting room and D goes for a wander. As he is now a trainee signalman back home he is fascinated to see the Ramnagar box, a concrete blockhouse on the platform with six levers for points and signals. A train from Delhi arrives but this is not going to be ours.

At about 9.40 pm the waiting room suddenly empties. There has been no announcement but people must know something. D goes out to investigate and finds that a short train has been surreptitiously shunted into the platform ahead of the one that arrived. A quick number check confirms that this is our train. We walk towards the AC coaches looking for AB1, a combination 2AC/3AC coach. Away from the buldings it is dark but the coach attendant confirms we have the right coach. Our berths are 2AC 11& 12, a pair of side berths, and we quickly stow our luggage and make up the beds. The bay opposite us is empty but due to fill up at later stops. Scheduled departure is 10.00 pm but this comes and goes.  Next thing D knows the train is under way and the TTE is after our ticket. This done we can switch out the lights and crash.

We are awoken at a subsequent stop (Kashipur or maybe Moradabad) when two groups both claim possession of the berths opposite. They go at it hammer and tongs for several minutes, and while some of the nuances are wasted on us, it is clear that they are arguing about whether this is 2AC or 3AC. C'mon guys, this is not rocket science. Just count the freakin' beds. Double bunks = 2AC, triples = 3AC. Duh!. Eventually they shut up and we get back to fitful sleep. This train leaves Ramnagar as 25014 Corbett Park Link Express but arrives at Old Delhi as 15014 Ranikhet Express having merged with another train at Moradabad. The combined effort will travel through to Jaisalmer but according to the charts all except one of the AC2 passengers will deboard at Old Delhi, where arrival is scheduled at 4.00 am. We have learned a little about punctuality on trains like this and set our alarms for 4.00. This gives us enough time to get ourselves sorted out with five minutes to spare before we roll into DLI, variously known as Delhi Main, Delhi Junction and Old Delhi.

We need to transfer to New Delhi Station which means a short drive. As we exit the station a young man says "Taxi, sir". D should have known better but asks the fare to NDLS. "Meter sir" comes the reply. He leads us quickly to one of the black minibuses that are commonly used as cabs in Delhi. We load the luggage and hop in. Then he says "Fixed price 500". D insists on the meter. "But sir 40% night charge" D has no idea if this is correct but decides even if it is meter is going to be better and continues to insist. "Sir, it is a long trip, 8 kilometres. Fixed price 400 final" . It is not 8km. We walked it once, admittedly without luggage, and D deploys Google Maps to make the point.At last we set off with the meter running and D carefully monitoring the route taken. When we arrive the meter says 140 so plus 40% makes 196. The driver asks again for 400 and D says "Let's find a policeman" which brings the price down to 300. D capitulates. It is probably still over the odds but after all what is a visit to Delhi without a row about a taxi or auto fare and this is the only chance that we will get on this brief visit.

The executive lounge is located without problem and we pay our admission fee. We used it three years ago and it is much as we remember,  although a little more worn. Advantage is taken of the free tea facility and we give the wifi a workout. There are a few people asleep on sofas and groups of chairs but it is not busy at all. The staff are getting breakfast ready so we pay Rs 200 each and dive in as it opens. To say that the breakfast buffet was unimaginative does a disservice to the word unimaginative. The pooris are tough, the bread slightly past its best, the gravy moves but doesn't taste of much and only the hard boiled eggs come up to scratch. One hundred and fifty rupees gets you two hours in the Lounge and we feel no urge to linger. 

Our train leaves from platform 2 and we are 14 platforms away so there is a bit of a route march across one of the station foot bridges. One of D's arch enemies,  a porter or coolie as they are still known, confirms that we are in the right place. Soon the boards light up with the train number and the coach positions.  We are pretty much in the right place and do not have long to wait. A shunting engine brings in the distinctive pale blue liveried coaches of the Kalka Shatabdi, one of India's crack daytime expresses. We are riding executive class today and take up residence in coach E1 at the forward facing seats of a table for four in the middle of the coach. There are a fair few pink people in this coach, and two of them take the other seats at the table. They are a couple from Kent visiting India for the first time, having arrived yesterday after an overnight flight. They had a guided tour of Delhi yesterday and are now on their way to Shimla via the narrow gauge railway. 

They have lots of questions about India and are so new that they have not yet had chai. They are quite taken with the Shatabdi and we have to explain that this is not really typical. Most of their travel will be by car and they have guides organised to meet them wherever they go. We had guides at times on our first trip and were with a tour group for two weeks but we couldn't really imagine going back to that, even if it does get us into arguments with taxi wallas. This trip lasts for four hours and the coach is full as far as Chandigarh where three quarters of those on board get off. For the remaining 30 minutes to Kalka nearly all of the remainder are Westerners. As D was taking our luggage down off the rack he falls into conversation with a man who is going to Shimla by train but has sent his suitcase up in a hired car. We are gobsmacked.

The majority of the people on the platform at Kalka are pink and heading to the adjacent Narrow Gauge station where the midday train to Shimla, the Himalayan Queen, awaits them. We head for the station exit and take an auto to our Kalka hotel - Modi's. We don't ask which Modi it is named for. The hotel appears well maintained and our room is spacious and quite nicely fitted out. There are one or two quirks such as banks of switches which don't seem to do anything, the shower mixer being plumbed in the wrong way round and there being a full height window between the bedroom and the shower area. We have seen this in two or three Indian hotels, usually quite smart ones, and never anywhere else. There is a blind that can be lowered inside the shower. Business must be good as there is a huge extension out back which is being fitted out by people who like hammering a lot.

We get showered and changed (with the blind down) and head out to explore. The sunshine is hazy and it is not too hot. First task is to find out how long it will take to walk to the station as we have a very early train tomorrow. We find a route much shorter than the one used by the auto that brings us to a foot crossing of the line which gives access to the mainline platforms and via them the narrow gauge station. D then spends  half an hour checking out the engine sheds and sidings beyond the station. At one point a policeman strides over but all he wants to do is shake hands and say thank you. His English is on a par with D's Hindi so quite what lay behind this show of gratitude goes unexplained. D had hoped to spot the steam loco that he caught a fleeting glance of four years ago but a chap at the shed says it is no longer there.

The fun part over we walk up the main street to find an internet cafe or similar. Judging by the reactions we get from the locals very few tourists actually leave the railway station. We certainly didn't see any others in the auto scrum outside the station. There are shouts of Hi, Hello and Welcome and quite a lot of stares. We smile, wave and say hi back. There is no hassle or sales talk, it is all friendly and good humoured.  At the top of the main street from the station we turn down the other main street which is the highway to Shimla and has constant traffic. We suspect that there are people who were born on one side of this road who have never managed to cross it. We find an internet place and print out tomorrow's hotel voucher which has only just been emailed to us. Chores complete we return to Modi's to be idle until the restaurant opens for supper. When it does open we dine a deux, having requested that the band be blindfolded.